Change
by chivalrysdead
Summary: Seth and Summer post "The Ties that Bind". Either nothing changes or everything changes.


Title: Change Author: Emily )  
Rating: PG 13 Pairing: Seth/Summer Spoilers/Timeline: Post "The Ties that Bind"  
Summary: Either nothing changes or everything changes.  
  
p"I want to take you far from the cynics in this town and kiss you on the mouth"  
- Brand New Colony, The Postal Service  
  
"Seth?" Summer says softly. "Wake up"  
  
Seth's hair is all tousled, and he's most definitely asleep, and she can hear his breathing. And Summer feels sad. It's a beautiful day outside because this is where the beautiful people live, and maybe the beautiful people were ugly people who got a brand new face but who can tell the difference nowadays anyway?  
  
Her stepmom made herself into a brand new person after all, or y'know, had her rich new husband cut her open and do so. Ew. There's romance for ya, and okay, maybe Summer resents her a little but whatever. Her mother doesn't call anymore and her stepmom certainly doesn't try to replace her, but still. You can't just walk into people's lives and expect to fit. Summer comforts herself by thinking smugly that her stepmom's mostly plastic. Anyway. Her point is, this isn't Seth.  
  
This place and all of these shallow people are just so far removed from Seth - and they're not faux shallow the way Summer is either. Summer makes jokes about being shallow and then gets scared that one of these days she's gonna have pretended so much that she won't know how not to. She'll be, God forbid, her stepmom, and next thing you know she'll be having a nose job and these flip comments really won't be so funny.  
  
Seth is different from everybody else that she knows. She loves him - it took her a while to figure it out but she does. Of course she does. He escorts her to party after party and Summer gets scared that one of these days he'll have changed. He'll be like all of the other spoiled rich guys at school and oh God. She's watching him sleep, and that sounds creepy, but it's not, and she's all of a sudden so scared. Things are going to change, because they have to, because things are always changing. Look at her and Seth, a year ago he was a loser who she didn't give a second thought to. Everything changes.  
  
He misses Ryan now, and Ryan was the polar opposite of this place. He's still in Chino and Seth talks about Chino like he used to talk about Tahiti. Seth came back a week after he left and said that Tahiti could wait. Summer felt sad then, like he'd never go to Tahiti, not ever, like Tahiti was somehow not a possiblity now, and Seth wasn't Seth anymore.  
  
Summer thinks that she pretty much is this place, and the thing is she liked Newport, loved it even, before Seth. She didn't see anything wrong with parties and clothes and boys and money being everything that there was. Her mom just upped and left and if she could do that, then why couldn't Summer just do what she liked too? Maybe she was mean to people, and maybe she should have been nicer but really, why should she? Her mom didn't care even enough to tell her she was leaving, and when she called a few months later to 'say hi' Summer didn't care enough either.  
  
She's terrified Seth is gonna see right through her. He loved her without knowing her and how on earth can she ever live up to who he thought she was?  
  
Seth is a dreamer and all of those things people call guys who don't quite fit in. Or, as she used to call him, a loser. That stings a little now, that she thought that of him, that she thought it was okay to call him that. She supposes she's changed. But she's still mean, only now about other people, and maybe nobody ever changes. So maybe Seth won't be changed by this place, and he'll still be Seth. Somehow that doesn't comfort her. He hates this place and she is this place and of course this won't last. How can it? It's romantic, sure, hey it's a high school love story straight from a lame teen movie.  
  
Summer imagines the couples in these movies break up inbetween high school and college, because that's what happens in real life. The geek gets the girl, sure, but that can't last. In the end they're different people. They slot into one another's lives but only for a time. You can't just walk into people's lives and expect to fit. You can't, and Summer is painfully aware that this routine she and Seth have, going to parties together, her picking him up to take him to school, him staying over at her house when her dad is away, this is all temporary. He's gonna leave her, and her mom left too, and that's what happens.  
  
She doesn't fit into his life, not really. He doesn't fit in at these parties, and she doesn't fit in in his room listening to his CD's. She's not Anna and she doesn't get them, although she pretends she does. She pretends but she knows that she's only pretending and it makes her feel worse. He doesn't know yet she's not this girl he wants her to be. If he knew what she was really like, the mean thoughts she sometimes has, if he knew that he wouldn't get her like he thinks he does. He might not even like her, let alone love her.  
  
Maybe this town is killing Seth, or maybe it's killing her, or maybe she's just using it as an excuse for the way they're changing. The change is slow, but Summer can see it. He misses Ryan, and she misses him because he's clearly not the same, and she used to be his Tahiti and now she's just his girlfriend. You'd think that would be better but it's not. He is more to her than he was, but she is less to him. Sometimes she thinks about this, and like everything else, it scares her.  
  
Seth is stirring now, and it's time to pretend again.  
  
Seth lets out a gasp of mock shock as he peers at his watch. "Sum, you're awake. Is 10 not like way too early and like so last year?"  
  
"You're like, so totally lame," She tells him sweetly.  
  
"Wanna make me breakfast?" He says, trying to wrap an arm around her.  
  
"No." She says, ducking out of his reach.  
  
"Hussy."  
  
"How does that make me a hussy, Cohen?"  
  
"I just like using the word hussy," Seth says brightly.  
  
"Loser" She says affectionately, and doesn't think about how she used to call him that. Well, she does, of course she does, but she puts it out of her mind and she won't think of it until another sunny morning when she is alone with her fear with Seth content beside her.  
  
"C'mere" Seth says, and Summer obliges, giving in and giggling.  
  
She hopes that being his girlfriend is enough. She doesn't know how to be Tahiti or Chino or anything else. Newport is not what he wants, but he has it. She'll keep on pretending though, until Seth sees through her or until he changes into somebody else, somebody new who wants Newport. It's selfish, but she'd rather have him change than lose him. That's just one more thing on a long list of things that he doesn't know about her, because if he knew these things then maybe he wouldn't love her.  
  
Either nothing changes or everything changes.  
  
If nothing changes then Seth'll be Seth and tire of Newport and if everything changes then he will no longer be Seth - and either way, Summer is going to lose him. And she can't even resign herself to the stupid simple fact. She snuggles against him as he kisses against her neck and Summer is sad. 


End file.
